Sunday, August 27, 2017

We Celebrate Our 17th Anniversary and An Eclipse

A week or two ago we dressed up and went to a new restaurant in downtown Cibolo.

We've been kind of partial to cheese plates since we got one on an evening cruise for our 5th(?) anniversary.

So delicious and so filling!

This is the Linnea flower Phillip painted for me a while back. He had the image printed on greeting cards (linen textured!) for me. The first one will be sent out this week to a little baby girl, newly born, named Lanaya.

This guy came back to see us! I've been keeping an eye out for him. He's our one-legged male grackle. I figure it's the same one over and over. How many one-legged grackles can there be that visit our yard? There's another one who limps; his left claw is curled up like it hurts him. I wonder what causes these injuries?

We got a 60% eclipse here in San Antonio. My sister got a 90% one in Yakima, WA. We should get a pretty full eclipse in 2024. We will purchase glasses far ahead of the event to avoid price-gougers.

But Ms. Monica came over to celebrate her birthday that day. Our gift to her was a cake that Elizabeth made for her. A very elegant cake based off of a picture Ms. Monica showed to us. She brought soda pop (Manzana and Fruit Punch), and we sang to her and ate pieces of cake.

Jonathan was our eclipse photographer.

None of us in the neighborhood could figure out how to get the picture using the eclipse glasses and our phone camera. So everyone passed their phones to him.

"This happens when sunlight passes through a very small hole, as it would through a pinhole camera. Such a tiny opening gathers and focuses the light that passes through it, projecting an image of the light source on the other side. On a normal sunny day, you might notice circles of light projected over the shadows of tree leaves. Those are images of the sun projected through tiny holes in and between the leaves. On eclipse day, these circles will become crescents. Look at the shadows of leafy trees, tightly woven baskets, or other objects that have small holes in them to try to observe this effect. You can also make a small hole with your hands by interlacing your fingers."

Several families came out during maximum coverage. We had a friend give us a pair of his eclipse glasses, but he wasn't too sure about their certification, so we put them over a pair of sunglasses and it seemed to work out fine.

I really enjoyed eclipse day! We were in and out during all of the four hours or so of time. We did some nature journaling and had Ding Dong ice cream sandwiches (I found what I could that was cheap, round and sweet). It was really fun to celebrate the day with our neighbors!